Across the room from the six year old is a man hidden in shadows. He is always hidden in shadows. From the chest up, he is hidden. The younger of the two is not positive he remembers his face anymore. The only light comes from the hallway; a bright, pure white light compared to the darkness that envelops the rest of this little room, this tiny world in the huge castle the boy had known all his life.
He, on the other hand, stays strictly in the sanctity of the light. The thought of stepping out of the long stretch of light into the pool of darkness licking at his heels makes him shiver, and he clenches the ragged bear in his left hand tighter. Though it was so precious, its legs drag on the floor.
The man finally notices him. Though the boy cannot see it, a smile quirks his lips, and his normally so dull eyes shine in the terrifying black of this realm. The boy does not know why the man's worlds are always so dark and frightening. He avoids them as much as he can, except for this time of day, when he is to visit him.
"I've given you everything I can, everything you want. Masaomi, aren't you happy?"
"No, Father, I'm not happy."
"What can I do to make you happy, then, Masaomi? What's missing?"
"I don't know, Father."
The smile previously etched onto his face fades, like all things in this castle eventually must, as Masaomi leaves the room and shuts the door behind him silently. With Masaomi gone, the man - no, Izaya, not "father", not "the man" - is left to himself and his dark dark room and his dark dark thoughts, and his heavy, tired sigh breaks the silence that had settled over his world.
"What can I do," Izaya wonders aloud, "to make him happy?" More than half of the rooms in their not-so-humble home were Masaomi's to play in, to create in, to mold into anything and everything he desires. Izaya had his world, and Masaomi had many, each one more awe-inspiring than the last. When Izaya would visit Masaomi's worlds - which was not very often, the last visit being years ago now - to check on him, he would always be astounded by the imagination on that boy.
He is not sure what more Masaomi could want.
Hoping to shine some light on the subject, Izaya takes his thoughts with him when he stands from his throne and begins walking through the black of the room - away from his throne, away from the door and the hallway beyond. As he delves deeper into the endless expanse, the room gains a reddish tint and begins to brighten - revealing the rotten city he loved to walk through, where the streets were broken down and dirty and the beggars fell at his feet in shame and fear, and the businessmen went running and the women trembled but still came to his side, hoping not to provoke him.
Here, he was not only king of his castle, but king of everything. His smile returns.
He sends the women away, kicks the beggars out of his path and chases down a certain businesswoman. Though she was only part of his dream, part of his twisted imagination, he always went to her. It felt off, but she was like the extension of his own brilliant mind he never thought he needed, the thoughts he did not want to hear, the possibilities he had not given much consideration until she dragged them out into the light.
There she is.
"Namie," he sings - that is the name he has given her, "I need your counsel." His smile sickens her, he can tell, as she turns to face him with a frown creasing her otherwise smooth and un-garnished brow. It only widens when he notices it.
The extension of his mind does not like him very much.
"What is it now, Your Highness?" Namie's voice drips poisonous sarcasm, and Izaya drinks it greedily.
"Masaomi still isn't happy. What do you suggest?"
"Maybe he'd like to visit the outside world. Your warped reality isn't much comfort."
"The outside world?" The smile fades off the king's face as he ponders this. Masaomi has not been outside of the castle since he had arrived... "Maybe that's so, but I wouldn't like for him to leave." The indifferent expression that had taken over changes to a frown.
Namie looks like she wants to protest and maybe tell him off, but she does not. Instead, she offers him another suggestion. "What about broadening his horizons?" she finally comes up with. "Give him books, introduce him to more modern themes... His worlds are small. They just might expand into something bigger than reality itself."
It was at these points that Izaya really had to recall that Namie was only a part of his own mind, when she said things that sounded more befitting to him than her personality he has made for her. Nonetheless, these are wonderful ideas - as his ideas always are, of course.
His smile is back again, and he turns on his heel to leave, to find his way back to his throne and the door and the hallway beyond, with no more than "That could work" for a response and goodbye for Namie. It does not matter, because as soon as he turns away Namie disappears, as do the nameless beggars and women and businessmen as he passes. The darkness that was before becomes again, with now the exception of the hall of light that trails behind him, getting longer and longer with each step.
When he finally reaches the doorway, and steps out into the hall, he is nearly blinded by the surprising change of lighting. He recovers quickly, and is off on his quest to find Masaomi in the expanse of this castle.
The only downside of giving Masaomi many worlds is that he can be in any one of them at any given time.
But Izaya knows his castle, his kingdom. Izaya knows the boy he had fathered for six years. So Izaya can no doubt find him quickly. It is only natural he would, right?
And when he leaves Masaomi, the prince is reading through with ease books too complicated for his age, laying comfortably in an armchair that had quickly morphed into a much larger version of the stuffed bear clutched so tightly to his chest. Izaya seems pleased with himself.
Masaomi is more surprised that he has seen his father's face for the first time in three years.
The next day, when Masaomi visits Izaya's world, Izaya asks him the same question he always asks.
"I do everything I possibly can for you. Masaomi, aren't you happy?"
"No, Father, I'm not happy." In response, he receives the same answer he always receives.
"Why aren't you happy?" Izaya sounds concerned, and looks worried, because he is.
Masaomi cannot register the unusual tone in his voice, and cannot see the worry on his face. "I don't know, Father."
As Masaomi turns to leave, he hears his father sigh, and imagines him hanging his head in his hands. He frowns, but shuts the door and heads down the hallway, into his favourite room as of late.
This room consists of simply a wide meadow that stretched far as the eye could see, the bright blue sky above him that he had only seen on television shows and possibly in another life. Scattered trees were off from what you would expect - purple bark that swirled into different patterns, pink leaves of all different shapes and sizes. Even the water was somehow unusual, crystal clear and tinged blue. Drinking it would do nothing to stifle one's thirst, but it was cool and pure and it satisfied Masaomi with just the feel of it.
The books from before fall from the sky, landing neatly in a stack beside him. Masaomi looks at them with scorn. He had read through half of the stack since the day before. Father had told him it might make him happier.
It did not.
In fact, reading about these fictional adventures these teenagers go on with friends or acquaintances or people they didn't even know but later become friends with worsened these unhappy feelings.
His teddy comes to comfort him, and that at least makes Masaomi smile, especially when it swipes the books away and sits beside him.
"There you are."
"Here I am." Masaomi simply climbs into the lap of the teddy, which has suddenly grown larger, which now speaks to him.
"Father is acting strangely," Masaomi confides. "I don't know what's wrong."
Teddy never was one for verbal consoling. It only hugs the small boy while he vents.
"He always asks if I'm happy. I always say no without thinking. Am I really unhappy?"
Masaomi is unaware that his teddy is only an extension of his mind, like the Namie his father sometimes mentions. So when teddy answers with, 'Yes', the young boy's response is immediate.
"How do you know? You aren't me!" He seems unhappy, but teddy's face remains unchanged.
"But I know. Your heart is crying."
"Hearts can't cry." It sounds like Masaomi is scolding teddy for ignorance. But it still makes him think, and look inside himself. Is his heart really crying?
When he finds no tears, but such a heavy feeling overcomes him, he is confused.
After a moment of sitting silently with teddy, Masaomi reaches for the next book in his stack, which neatens itself back up. Maybe he will find answers.
AN: Something different. A picture on zerochan [327254] inspired me somehow to write something like this. I shouldn't be left alone with Kingdom Hearts, Durarara! and Zerochan. Kingdom Hearts makes me think. Pfff-
I don't know if I'm going to be continuing this, but I do have a later event planned out...I just don't know how to continue it, is all. We'll see how you guys like it, I guess? :) orz I was planning to update DLS before I uploaded anything else...
...it didn't work like that. Sorry. |D